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In our practice, we pull together all the major individuals (agency, market research, promotion, etc) for a Scenario Planning meeting and have found that when we ask, “What is the goal of this campaign”, only one time have we found there was consistent agreement from all parties to that goal. Try it yourself.

Nothing is more harmful in our experience than the fact that most organizations haven’t agreed to the primary, to-be-measured, goal of the campaign.

More on this in Part II

Correct!

Obviously, the budget should be set per the goals and not some simple adjustment to last year’s budget. Who knows that what was done last year will work again (or do we even know that it worked before?). Advertising is an investment, like a stock. A marketer should know the change in performance relative to what was spent.

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Marketers who have participated in studies covered in What Sticks have increased the performance of their campaigns once initiated by an average 35%, and we’ve seen real increases of nearly 2000%. The point is that gains can clearly be had by improving individual elements of a campaign or by simply optimizing what is already being done. And that knowledge can change the trajectory of a campaign.

Correct!

It’s true; AIDA is just not that helpful. It was created in early 1900’s and although we see it in many plans today it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Consumers don’t need to go through so complicated a process of awareness-interest-desire before action. Advertising communicates and thus changes Brand Image or Purchase Intent in a consumer right away. Many times without the consumer even being fully aware. Focusing on getting each of the 4M’s (Motivations, Message, Media and eventually Maximization) makes a lot more sense in achieving advertising effectiveness than AIDA.

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In today’s era, Cost Efficiency doesn’t really make sense. Sure, there may be some value to understanding the cost efficiency of different parts of the same medium but given the different impact each medium has on the brand’s goals, using “cross media” efficiency measures are not helpful input to better decisions. Not to mention, given that each medium is measured so differently, NO comparisons can be made (for example, Magazine measurement just confirms that a consumer says they read a magazine (maybe never seeing the Ad) while Online measures the actual ad sent to a consumer who is actively engaged with the medium, without consumer’s self reporting. Therefore, measuring actual effectiveness is a superior measure. It should be “what is the value of each dollar spent relative to the goals?” Measuring the change an ad creates in consumers and then applying the cost data to that is far better and in fact is really the only measure that should be undertaken when evaluating media.

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While the last 2 are helpful, getting the Consumer Motivation, the Ad Messaging and Media right are the critical factors that matter most in developing ad campaigns that really work. A Big Idea or a good story, without addressing a solid consumer motivation that matters often only creates ineffective advertising.

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Obviously, knowing a campaign is working sooner that later is better. However, most marketers we’ve talked to don’t even know this is possible. Reading the impact of a campaign presents an opportunity to make changes and improvements. Sure, some programs and advertising elements should be let to run a little bit before changes are made but generally more feedback sooner is better than later.

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Across all studies, we found TV is very heavily invested in and that anything above 5 frequency is likely past the point of diminishing returns and therefore each additional dollar spent has very little value. At that point, the dollars spent are not producing much result and often other opportunities exist. However, the actual diminishing return curve for any medium should be research and documented as each brand and each creative execution has its own dynamics.

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Simply put, the Online Medium is not consumed in a linear fashion by consumers and therefore the advertising should not be developed that way. Online advertising needs to pass the glance test, which means that at any point a consumer may notice the ad they need to get the whole point and associate it to that brand.

Correct!

Rich Media, or Online ads that act like TV and are generally developed in Flash, are extraordinarily powerful. They are almost always +100% more effective versus then non Rich Media version of the same ad. What’s interesting is that they are often only priced at +50%, making them extremely valuable and cost effective. This singular example raises the whole question of how best to arbitrage media. Where are their opportunities for the marketer to get more bang for the buck? In our experience, the media market pricing is not aligned to the value and therefore, the smart marketers have figured out how to buy counter to market trends and get more value for their money.